You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Getting Dogmatic: Our 4 Favorite *REAL* Bebop Albums and Compilations - #56

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

Today on You'll Hear It, get hip to Peter and Adam's 4 favorite *REAL* Bebop albums and compilations. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. What's up? You don't know anything about real bebop. Oh, you're trying to get dogmatic on me. Very much so. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast.

Daily jazz advice coming at you in a dogmatic fashion today, apparently. I meant to be dogmatic, not so, like, aggressively standoffish about it. I'm not saying you don't know. Well, dogmatic implies a certain amount of aggressive standoffishness, I would say. That's okay. Agreed. I mean, bebop in general kind of can, you know, is there a separate force of the jazz police known as the bebop,

like it's like a sub, you know, like a task force. Yes. The bebop police. It consists of three guys. They're very skinny. They live in the West Village. They wear really funny hats. You can picture who I'm talking about here.

Exactly. They smell a little funky. We don't name names on the you'll hear a podcast. One of them runs a small club down there. You know how it goes. But no, so we thought we would, you know, there's a lot of hard bop and post bop and weird bop that gets. Webop.

Webop for kids. That's right. I did that actually. All that stuff kind of gets labeled into, lumped into the category of bebop. But we're talking about four of our favorite albums or compilations that are, in our opinion, like real hardcore bebop. This is in that era like 46 to 52. We're talking OG hipster, OG hipster, not the resurgence of the hipster. Yeah, like half the band you don't recognize the names.

Like you've got to have a trash bag full of like. Like weed with you to even be in this category. No, no, okay, got it. You got it. Yeah, yeah. So I thought this would be a fun kind of episode. And I've been kind of diving into some of this, like, hardcore bebop lately. It's fun music.

Yeah. I mean, look, it's like a lot of things. Like the original, the OG stuff is so much better than the rehash stuff. And I'm not talking about what they called hard bop in these things. I see that more as a progression of the music. And really, Bbop is just, I mean, they always want to say it was a revolution and all that. but it was also progression within the music of jazz. And it took hold, but it was never like a separate track that went off on its own.

I mean, there's always going to be acolytes that follow something or like, oh, I only do bebop or only do ragtime. But most jazz musicians and just modern musicians, it's a part of the vernacular. Almost any modern jazz musician has some kind of bebop language. Yeah, you can't be like, I don't do bebob. I do everything else. Yeah. Well, we'll get started here with the very best of it, the king of Bhop.

in most people's opinion and mine too. And that's Charlie Parker. Ooh, really going on a limb on that one. Really going on. I mean, the thing with this about our four favorite B-Bop albums and compilations is really everything Charlie Parker recorded was almost by definition B-B-B-B-B-B. Even the Strings record, the way he plays on that record.

Man, I think that's some of his best playing. That's some B-B-B-B-B-B-Lines. I know, I know. I mean, did he have, I'm trying to think, did he have any bad recording, I mean, not even bad, just lesser? Not much. I mean, I was thinking about him the other day. You know how people kind of kind of kind of

compare B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-to-Ruque music or Bach or something. And I kind of see that, but more than anything with Charlie Parker, he has dozens and hundreds of recorded solos. And just like Bach, they're all great. You know what I mean? Like, there's no slouching there. It's all human and perfect.

Was it a thing where he, like, you know, had them destroy the tape when it wasn't or he wouldn't let him release it? Maybe he was exacting because everyone has an off day, and I just haven't heard it. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I hadn't heard. I haven't heard it. I haven't heard it either, man.

If any of our loyal listeners has heard some saddest Charlie Parker, please let us know, just out of interest. You know what? A little challenge. I heard something when he was young on tenor, and it was a little sad. I mean, it wasn't as good as what happened later, but he was super young. This was like pre-4. Having a symbol thrown at his neck, you know, for playing. But he was playing tenor, and it wasn't like, where did I hear this just recently?

But it wasn't like fully formed a bird. But then after that, man, everything is like so golden. It wasn't fully formed bird. It was the little bird when the mother's still giving the worm. So, man, I don't know about you, but for me, it's all about the complete dial, the complete Savoy.

Those two compilations, and now you can even get compilations of those two compilations together. That's all the real stuff. That's the real deal. That's the grit. That's the grease. That's where it all happens.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, whenever saxophone players, especially anyone, it's like, how do I get the bebops sound? I'm like, you don't even have to make it complicated. I mean, we can give you a list of many different artists from different eras that you can get that bebob vernacular.

But go and learn no matter what instrument you play. Seriously. Go through any of the dial, the Savoy, any of those recordings. That's what I'm saying. That's why it's so safe to recommend. I mean, we can talk about specific recordings, but there was not weak playing, and you get a variety on there over all those tunes. And, you know, the tunes that they came up with. I mean, there's, you know, the Donnelly and those tunes, but that are based upon, you know, core change.

of famous pop tunes from the time or Tin Pan Alley or what? A lot of rhythm changes, a lot of blues. The great thing about this from a transcribing perspective, too, if you want to get more bebob language, go to the dial, go to the Savoy, transcribed Charlie Parker. Most of the solos are one chorus, some are even half a chorus. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, they take short solos back then. Right. Because they were limited on the... The cylinders were smaller, right? They couldn't record very long. Right. But that's, to your advantage as a transcriber, and also, you get, a great sense of how to solo in a short time,

which is its own skill. You know, we talk about architecture of a solo over two, three, four, five, six choruses or whatever, five minutes. You know, try doing something in 25 seconds. That's right. It's saying something. Yeah.

Yeah, and those, I remember learning a lot of these solos, and I was, you know, now's the time. There's several different versions, and people are always like, which version? You say you learn this? Any of them. Any of them, you know?

Like we said, they're all good. I mean, do, bo do, bo do, poo, bo, do, bo, that's the one I always think of, but I mean, all of them are good. Don't learn that one. If I have to hear that one more time. Yeah, exactly. That used to be good until it was co-opted. But, all right, great. Can we move on? We can move on. Okay. I mean, it's hard because we could stop at Charlie Parker with OG. But we were thinking about just different things. So I want to go with Thelonius Monk. Well, we agree on this. This has all been vetted. Thelonius Monk, specifically genius of modern music, volume one and two.

Now, were these balloon note recordings? I should have vetted that part because I was thinking, I was looking at the, I was thinking of them as blue note recordings. I guess they're not Blue Note. No, they're Blue Note LP. Oh, they are Blue Notes. I'm looking at the Wikipedia here. Blue Note LP 5,002. Oh, okay, that's the number I was trying to think of. Yeah, I knew you were thinking of that one specifically. No, but both these records, first of all, I was reminded of the great, you know, I always thought the original covers were the ones, the yellow was like the volume one and the red was the volume two, but that was actually reissues. When I saw several years ago in Japan some original LPs. The original artwork is so great and I never saw that on

the reissues. The one with his eyes? The ones that are yeah exactly that's volume one and volume two looks kind of different. It's a real sort of 50s, early 50s, late 40s sort of design are so great but I had a chance at great cost to buy both those which I should have done on LP. But anyway, these recordings are really some great you know from a compositional standpoint for the bebop era and I think from a playing standpoint as well. You have like like some really varied personnel on here. A lot of great tunes, you know, some of the, you know, I think this was like the first recorded straight-note chaser in B-flat.

Yeah. You know, four-in-one, which is like kind of a, such a great sort of bebop monk tune that's not played a lot because it's super hard. Ruby, my dear, an epistrophe. I mean, these are all from 1947, so these are very early versions of this. Yeah, very early versions. And then some of the lesser known one, Skippy. I love Skippy, man.

Skippy's great. Monk's mood, which is great. Ask Me 9. So you're really getting the origins. And like hearing the way that they played them at this time, as opposed to later recordings, you really get the understanding of like Thelonious Monks you know, deep rooted tradition within the bebop sound.

Like there's a little bit more Bud Powell in his playing. It's definitely Monk, but you hear that influence, you hear that connection, I should say, even more so. Yeah, it's funny. Almost all of these were released in the 50s at some point, but they were all recorded in the 40s. You know, this was recorded mostly, it says, in 1947, but released in 1951.

Okay. Most of these are compilations too. It's really hard to get, I think, to like the original singles. I don't know if they're even available on like CD or streaming anymore, but these compilations are great. So we'll move on to number three and that's another compilation. Even though you might not think it is, it definitely is. It's Dizzy Gillespie's Grooven High. And obviously Dizzy Gillespie, a father of bebop, you know, he and Charlie Parker, really helped shape this music.

But this is a compilation of three different. bands, you know, basically him and Charlie Parker, and then a sextet with Dexter Gordon and a combo with Sonny Stitt, and then a big band at the end. So there's a lot going on here. There's a lot of musicians, you know, on this record, Kenny Clark, Slam Stewart, Ray Brown, Kenny Dorham, Dexter Gordon, Al Haig, Milt Jackson. I mean, it's like a who's who of early B-Bop and then later Hardbop, John Lewis, you know what I mean? Like, All these folks, Sunny Stitt, all these folks who would go on to do their own thing. This was also recorded in, it looks like, 1945 through 1947.

Nice. And released in 1955. Nice, nice. All right, for number four, we're going to go with live at Jazz at Massey Hall with the Quintet. And this is one that I heard kind of early on it. I didn't know what it was, but I love the sound of this. This was recorded actually 1953 in Toronto at Wonderful Hall, Massey Hall, which is still happening. and I've got a chance to play there a couple of times,

super cool place. And this was, so this is a little bit later, more mature recording for the, so it was Disney Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingis,

and Max Roach. And it was a live recording and extended, you know, with extended playing and everything, which you often didn't hear on those early recordings. And I didn't realize this,

but the extensive research department here at the You'll Hear a podcast alerted me to that, that Charles, Charles Mingus overdubbed and re-recorded some of his baselines on this because you couldn't hear him on the original live recording because it wasn't

like a portable recorder or something actually I couldn't find any evidence of that but I remember hearing the story I'm pretty sure it's true that it was crazy yeah that Mingus recorded it on stage with like an early portable some kind of recorder and then he went back through with Max Roach in New York and like added

back the lines because you couldn't really hear them well enough kind of like you know overlaid them or something and And then, but yeah, this was issued originally. I didn't realize this because, you know, by the time I'm hearing all this stuff, it was like the original jazz classics LP version. I remember I had that one.

But it was originally released on, I guess Mingus owned the recording or something because it was on his first record label. That's great. Yeah. Great playing on that. I need to dive into this one seriously. Yeah.

I don't think I've ever spent too much time with this because it doesn't sound very familiar. So I'm going to go. It's kind of overlooked now. There was a time when, I remember when it came out on, not came out for the first time, but was reissued on LP.

in the 80s or whatever. Yeah. And it was getting a lot of play. So that's a cool one. Well, we hope we've inspired you to like really dive into some bebop here, some real. That's right. Get your OG bebop on. Come on now.

No, there is nothing like it. I mean, we all kind of like we were saying, we're all influenced by bebop. And there's so much of it in, you know, the music of the late 50s and the 60s that everybody talks about and modern music too. But when you go back to this original like pre-filtered bebop stuff, I mean, that's as pure as this music can get. and it's really fun to get dogmatic about it. That's right. That's right. And so, I mean, you know, put your beret on, sculpt your beard, take out your pipe for a little smoke, and, you know, get your bebop on.

Dang right. Well, and if you have a suggestion for us for a future episode of the You'll Hear It podcast, you can go to You'll Hearot.com. You can leave us a voicemail. You can leave us a question. Also, you know what? We haven't talked about in a while. I don't know if we've got any.

But before you do that, can I jump in? Sorry. Oh, yeah. I'm just, no, I just remember something. But hold that thought. All right. I was just saying, remember how we had a. request from someone that was like, I love your record recommendations, but could you list them again at the end?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe we'll do that. The first one was Charlie Parker. Joe is dogmatic about this. Oh, Joe is, okay. Well, we got you. We got double dogmatic on you. Double D. Okay, Charlie Parker, complete dial sessions, complete Sevoi sessions, right? Is that enough for them to find it? Definitely. Okay. And then next was Thelonious Monk on Bluno, the genius of modern music, Volume 1 and Volume 2. Next, the third we talked about was Disney Lesbues Grooven High, that compilation. What is that on? Do we know?

What label? I don't see it. Jackleg record, bootleg records. That's on Savoy. Savoy, okay. And then Massey Hall, The Quintet. That's how I remembered it. It was like The Quintet live at Massey Hall.

So there you go. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, that's great. I was just saying, you know, leave us a voicemail, leave us a question, and you'll hear it.com. Where would they do that? Oh, you'll hear it.com. That's right.

That's where all this happens. Oh, check this out. Oh, dude. Someone brought you this shirt. Yeah? One of our loyal listeners. Peter just unveiled his chest, which is covered in a you'll hear it t-shirt, which you can also get at you'll hear it.com. That's right.

Yeah. Now, we're going to do something we haven't done in a while, and that is talk about ratings and reviews. Now, we're going to do this because. Oh, we get those, my man. Okay. We're going to do this because these do actually help get our podcast in front of more people, and that's kind of the goal. is to... It's just a big popularity contest.

That's what's happening. Let's be honest about it. It is. So if you go to Google Podcast or Apple Podcasts, you can leave us a rating, which we prefer seven stars. Yeah.

Now, most platforms only allow for five. Right. Due to a glitch in their systems. I think it's a bit wrong that they limit us in our imagination. Don't hold a man down.

Don't hold a man down. But here's a review from someone named Jones, and Jones says 11 stars, my absolute favorite podcast. Well, thank you very much, Jones. The rapport between Peter and Adam is wonderful, and the subjects are perfect. Reminds me of the kinds of conversations

I used to have in school, late at night debating Dizzy's trumpet versus a regular trumpet or ranking soprano players. It's so fun and fresh and truly inspirational. The passion and love of jazz come roaring through every episode. Keep it up, guys.

We'll do, Jones. Thanks very much, man. That's the kind of rating and review. 11 stars. Well, it's four too many, but we'll take it. No, Jones added seven to... No, no, he added six. Oh, that was bad.

Damn. I took jazz, not math. Math is hard. He added six stars to the original five that you could do. Is that what was happening? I like that. I guess so. That's good.

Jones, who's from Minneapolis? That's right. Unless his name is Jones, Minneapolis from United States. I think he's from Minneapolis. Jones, Minneapolis would be a great name for a man. That's right. I'm Johnson, Wisconsin. Jones, Minneapolis.

Cool. Well, that was good. Maybe tomorrow we'll talk about some of our other glowing reviews. Oh, there are more? There are more. We'll do that tomorrow, though. You'll hear it.